PARIS FASHION WEEK SUMMER 2012

The intense heat of Paris's non-air-conditioned venues combined with a glorious Indian summer meant that for once, the fashion witches (or fair and even-handed critics as we prefer to think of ourselves) got to see the summer collections in conditions similar to those they are intended to be worn in.

This fair and even-handed critic, for instance, having initially dismissed the new drop-waisted dress as a fast-track to hip, thigh and bottom disaster, began to revise her opinion. What could be more soothing and cooling on a humid day than a body-skimming, waist by-passing dress in silk or gauzey cotton?

They have to be artfully cut, of course. Some were. Others were borderline. And the ones with pleats bunching over the hips were insanity.

Refreshing too, were all the floaty, fluid, kilty skirts, designed to be worn with hip-length tunic tops - another way to wear a drop-waist silhouette, but this time one that nods to the Sixties rather than the Twenties.

The heat had other ramifications. It made the traditional fashion timescale - reviewing clothes six months before they reach the stores - seem even more archaic than it already does. Some labels are finally getting to grips with the madness. Uniqueness, a new venture between former Gucci and Valentino designer Alessandra Fachinetti, and Pinko, a high street Italian chain, put its collection online an hour after the show finished in Paris. ETA: 48 hours.

The organisers of the world's four major fashion shows are, the Telegraph discovered yesterday, dealing with the new order in their own way. It transpires that back in the summer, the Italians secretly decided that in future, they want to show first, not third, even if that means clashing with London and New York's Fashion Weeks, which it does. If they go ahead they'll be reneging on an agreement that has existed for the past 20 years. Cue hand-wringing from the Brits, head-nodding from the French and threatened cavalry charging from the Americans. Nice to see everyone playing to national stereotype.

But back to what really counts: fashion editors' wardrobes. So busy had they been packing their winter statements in tissue paper that many had neglected to look at the weather forecast. Big problem. Some of these front-rowers need never-before-seen outfits every day. Forget Hollywood celebrities (and most of the houses appeared to). Few were invited to the shows and fewer labels appeared interested in red carpet dresses. The new evening wear is a knee-length embellished skirt, or a trouser suit.

Perhaps the biggest celebrity to muscle in on Paris Fashion Week was Kanye West, with his own fashion show. After the reviews came out, he probably wished he hadn't. At least it made you appreciate the real designers, even if they're currently beset by rumours. Marc Jacobs to go to Dior? Pilati to Armani? George Osborne to YSL (I could just make these up and I'd still start an internet frenzy).

But back to the hard news. By day 12, the need for fresh supplies of summer clothes had become so pressing that Net-a-Porter's founder Natalie Massanet, savvy marketeer that she is, arranged for one of the company's distinctive black vans to drive over from London with emergency orders.

Our top ten shows from Paris :

Phoebe Philo's collection had an almost forensic severity the trench jackets were sliced off mid-thigh and worn over mid-calf white skirts. That's a difficult silhouette for the average woman, but Philo jacks her up onto chunky platforms and cinches in her waist with a belt as wide as the Thames. "The collection was about playing with proportions," said Philo. The Céline woman will stand tall as an arum lily on super-size platforms in pristine white, letting her statement shapes do the talking.

Once, Isabel Marant was adored for making fashion accessible and sexy. So what was she trying to tell us here? That you can look young and sexy in trackie bottoms, a man's checked shirt and a hoodie? Er, we know that. Abercrombie, via their Bruce Weber ads, have been banging that drum for years. It wasn't all sloppy however. There was a lot of craft in this collection: those skinny patchwork jeans in washed-out raspberry will be a big hit next spring, and endlessly copied.

We all know that the pencil skirt is synonymous with that prim but promising secretary who features in every heterosexual's Rolodex of stock fantasies, but Lanvin's were deliberately rucked-up - as if they came with rough and ready sexual encounters already built in. There may not have been a lot of flesh on display - until we got to those crinkle pleated, fit-and-flare sheer dresses and the tuxedo pants with their peekaboo slashed white stripes -but there was plenty of attitude. Fabulously well-behaved clothes with a dark and dirty under-belly.

As well as absolutely the sharpest pencil skirts anywhere this season (in red, blue and bl`ck) Mouret presented a collection of summery, holiday-ready slouchy trousers, baggy tailored shorts, and wide-shouldered coats and dresses (the same shoulder-shape Mouret favours in his menswear collection) gorgeous enough to give Bacall a fit of the vapours. There were dresses in a tweedy black and white material and a circle print - sometimes decorated with Picasso-ish eyes - that flared behind the knee and frilled at the shoulder. He achieved the requisite Mouret flesh-flash quota via some ribboned lattice sections in some of the skirts and dresses, and some south-of-the-bosom panels. It was great stuff.

The supermodel elite, used to being stared at on catwalks, turned the tables at Hermès and wandered around, scrutinising the audience. A white period of oversized, near-harem trousers and jackets, tunic dresses and culottes was followed by two rust-coloured looks, then this stunning orange dress with leather detail. On they came - the green slouchy suit, the caramel leather shorts, the print dress with robots wearing American Indian headdresses, often accessorised with dinky saddlebags.

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This colour virus is spreading. Even Riccardo Tisci ventured out of his dark Gothic dungeon. If Philo is digging purity, Tisci is mining impurity. Swoops were the order of the day: curved hems, horizontal folds that wrapped the body. Dresses with a scrim of lace over the top, stretch pencil skirts with patent trim, three-piece trousersuits (buttoned-up shirt, snug jacket and trousers), sleeveless jacket-come waistcoats with peplums that swooped into a fishtail at the back.

Karl Lagerfeld said last year that he would like to see Haider Ackermann succeed him at Chanel. With this collection, the Colombian-born, Belgian-trained Ackermann suggested he would be an inspired choice. Ackermann took the trouser suit, hammered it out of raw silks and Indian gold-stamped sari fabric, then steeped it in some of the loveliest colours seen so far - and it has been a season of gorgeous colours. By fixing so single-mindedly on the slouchy elegance of the trouser suit, rather as Romeo Gigli did 20 years ago, Ackermann has unilaterally declared the frou-frou cocktail dress a dinosaur. And he made poetry out of colour.

Under Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli the house of Valentino is striking a perfect balance between its own history and reinvention. By layering ultra-light materials like chiffon and lace they create an ultra-feminine interplay, for example by placing the lightest possible polka dots on a nude chiffon underskirt. The longer white decorated dresses were reminiscent of the frock worn by Waterhouse's Ophelia. Yet just as their dresses were never coarse, these were never overwrought or corny.

We've seen a lot of skirt suits and cropped jackets this past month, but Stefano Pilati gave his a distinctive YSL signature. Those high-drama ruffles on the hems of his split, just-above-the-knee skirts and cocoon-backed jackets delivered interesting, high class detailing to what are - for the YSL customer - relatively straightforward, uncomplicated clothes. The suits came with high-necked, uptight chic silk blouses, showing off Pilati's credentials as a Saint Laurent-worthy colourist.

The Grand Palais is the perfect setting for a Chanel show its bombastic imperialism is utterly in sync with Karl Lagerfeld's. While other houses retrench, regroup, re-hab, Chanel's extravagance seems strangely reassuring. Bring on those 70 models in their whisper-light, silk gazar jewelled dresses and airy, loosely woven tweed as they march around giant shells and fish to Wagner's Valkyrie. The theme was aquatic and Lagerfeld didn't spare the (sea) horses. 

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